F.A.Q

Neighbors of Chaos is an online comic, and new chapters are published about every other week. While waiting for new chapters, you can follow Neighbors of Chaos news as well as find info on my other projects directly on my blog. Neighbors of Chaos represents an incalculable investment of time and money for me. Between the time spent working, the costs of maintaining the website, the assistants I hire from time to time to speed up the process…I’ll just let you imagine the cost of my investment in time and money. I’m always accepting help and support for this project, so if you like my work, don’t hesitate to share it! Whether you show your enthusiasm publicly or privately, your feedback and appreciation are an enormous help to me in judging the impact of my work. I have idea how many readers I have, so expressing your interest helps me to know that I’m not doing all this for nothing.

I am currently looking into different possibilities for publishing a paper version, so if you have any useful contacts or experience or ideas that might help me with this, please let me know. Whether it’s crowdfunding or printers, I’m open to any and all suggestions.

Finally, if you notice any spelling errors or typos or if you spot Zlige sporting a third arm, let me know. Hopefully this will help me to present a project free of technical flaws.If you wish to contact me, you can go to my portfolio or send me an email: sylvain.sarrailh@gmail.comBut before you contact me, make sure the answer to your question isn’t already answered in the FAQs below:

Why distribute the entire comic for free?

For the moment I’m financing this project with my own money, but someday I won’t be able to do that anymore; my resources will run out and my freelance activities will have to take up more time. Signing up with a publishing company and an editor means losing your control over your work and the right to disseminate and publish it yourself. I don’t want to remove my pages from the internet and from public domain. If I'm going to spend this much time on my comic, I don't want to limit it to two or three thousand copies that run the risk of drowning in a sea of other collections in the same boat. Making a living on my comic would be ideal, but if I write a story then I write it for the maximum number of readers and not for just a few people.

How many books will make up the series Neighbors of Chaos?

The whole Neighbors of Chaos story is already written and done. However, I don’t want to address the question of number of books because I don't want to give any clues about the ending. I’ve always found it frustrating to see the end of a movie coming just because I know how long it’s going to be, or the ending of a series because I know how many books there are. Better to take advantage of the freedom serializing the story offers, and let the ending be a surprise.

What techniques do you use for your comic? How time does it take to do each frame?

I work entirely digitally, which means that I draw everything directly onto my screen.One frame takes me about four days:One day for the writing and the storyboardOne day to sketch the outlinesOne day to ink everything inOne day for the colors and backgroundsThat’s the average. Sometimes it will take more or less time depending on the complexity of the page. For a whole comic, it depends entirely on the number of pages and the complexity of the project. To get a better idea of the method, I’ve put up a tutorial here on how to create a frame.

There’s a donation button on your site. Where does the money go?

Even though I offer free access to Neighbors of Chaos, the site is expensive to maintain. Donations help me cover the costs of keeping up the website and publishing the comic. Excess funds go towards hiring assistants to help me put up new chapters more quickly.If you want to support Neighbors of Chaos and its author, you can make a donation via Paypal at this address. Your donations make it possible to keep this comic free and defray the costs associated with publication of a comic. If you would not like your name to appear in the acknowledgements, please don’t hesitate to let me know by email. Whether your donate or not, I hope you continue to enjoy my comic!

Why not work with an editor on Neighbors of Chaos?

I contacted french editors when I first started Neighbors of Chaos. But in light of the proposals they suggested, I preferred to remain independent on this project rather than sign a contract with so few advantages for me, my work, and the editor. The French comic industry is currently undergoing a crisis of over-production, and for the moment I’m keeping a bit of distance from the publishing world, waiting for more favorable proposals in regards to both the story and its distribution.

I have a whole bunch of stories and I’m looking for an artist to put together a portfolio to submit to editors. Can we work together?

Neighbors of Chaos already takes up a crazy amount of my time, and the time I have left is dedicated to the work I do with computer graphics, for paying clients. I’m kept too busy to put energy into unpaid projects. But my door is not closed—if the project is already solid, paid, and convinces me it’s worthwhile, I might be willing to help out. But please, do not contact me asking to help you with Harry Potter fanfiction, a prequel to Dragon Ball Z, or show me a project with a million promises but no payment.

Can you do a drawing for me? I want you to draw Naruto dressed in elfin armor on the back of a dragon.

Sorry, but even though I work for free on Neighbors of Chaos, I don’t do it for anyone else, not even if it’s your birthday. Whether you are an individual, a non-profit, or a private business, I don’t work for free! If you want to order a specific drawing, that falls under my professional activity. You can go on my website or send me an email.

Can I publish pages from Neighbors of Chaos in my school paper or on my website?

No. All of my work on Neighbors of Chaos belongs to me and is protected. Please respect the author and the work. If you want to discuss a partnership, you can contact me, but don’t take parts of my work without my permission or you’ll be invoking the wrath of Zeus (yes, I have friends in high places).